


Holy Palmers' Kiss

by flawedamythyst



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-20
Updated: 2009-12-20
Packaged: 2018-10-16 10:21:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10569339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flawedamythyst/pseuds/flawedamythyst
Summary: It was all in the first handshake, every time.Reincarnation AU.





	

It was all in the first handshake, every time. Palm met palm and it was like a circuit being completed, unlocking parts of him that he hadn't known existed. His memories all lit up like a string of fairy lights, life after life stretching back in time, right to the very beginning. He'd be able to remember the very first handshake they ever shared with crystal-clear clarity, every detail burnt into his mind so deeply that even death hadn't erased it.

It had been Spain, some time in the 1030s, and he'd been called Jeremias. He'd been grooming Señor de Arneto's horse, thinking idle thoughts about whether or not he should spend his evening repairing some of the old tack that was piling up in the stableroom, or whether he should put it off for another day and instead take Casilda the kitchen maid up on her many unsubtle invitations.

Diego came in, followed by one of the tallest men Jeremias had ever seen, floppy hair falling into his eyes as he ducked through the doorway.

“José, new stable lackey,” explained Diego in his usual gruff manner. He gestured at Jeremias. “Groom. Do everything he says immediately.”

José nodded nervously. Jeremias smiled at him, trying to offset Diego's manner. “Welcome to the Castillo de Quel,” he said and held out his hand. The man grinned back and stepped forward to take it, and Jeremias was completely distracted by his dimples and the way his whole face was lit up, right up until their hands touched.

If he'd known what an electric shock was he'd have likened it to that, but as it was, all he could think about was that moment last summer when lightning hit the tree by the gateway and blasted it to a charred ruin in less than the time it took to blink. José's touch seemed to reach right down to his soul, transforming it into something completely new, while all Jeremias could do was stare stupidly up into José's brown eyes.

He didn't go to see Casilda that night, or any night after. Instead, he showed José how to repair tack, watching his large, gentle hands move confidently at the task and wondering what the hell was happening to him. Suddenly he was wanting things he'd never even considered before, things he couldn't get out of his mind no matter how much he tried to shut them away.

He fought it for a while – everyone knew how God dealt with men who lay with other men in the afterlife – but José was always there, standing too close and smiling as if spending his days mucking out somebody else's horses was the best thing ever, just as long as he got to be around Jeremias.

Jeremias gave in to it on a sunny June day in the stable loft, kissing José fiercely and pushing him down onto a pile of straw, desperate from months of repressing everything he'd been wanting. José responded just as eagerly, giving everything right back with interest, pulling Jeremias apart with his mouth and hands until there was nothing left but shaking need and the bone-deep truth that he was always going to belong to José.

They had each other for a couple of years – sneaking around the Castillo, finding secret places to meet, ignoring the dark looks some of the other servants started to give them as time passed and their subtlety waned. Jeremias knew it was wrong, knew that God hated it, but he also knew that nothing made him feel alive like José did and that he'd never be happy without it now that he'd tasted it.

It was a fever that ended it, one of the hundred unnamed diseases that were around back then. José was coughing and shivering one day, laid up delirious in bed the next, and dead by dawn on the third. Jeremias helped Diego and the others wrap his body in a cloth and take it over to the church, where Padre Rodriguez muttered a few empty words of Latin over it and Pedro buried it beneath a rough wooden cross. Jeremias felt hollow, as if his emotions had been scooped out and replaced with cold, dark water from the bottom of the well.

After the sun had set and the churchyard was deserted, he went back there and knelt down on José's grave, pressing his hand down into the earth as if he could just reach down and pull him back up to life.

“I know it was a sin,” he whispered to God, “but he was everything.” He bowed his head as the tears started to flow. He wanted to just lie down, stretch out his body above José's and die right there. Suicide was a mortal sin though, and Jeremias believed in God's love enough to hope that if he just stuck it out, if he found a way to keep going with this life, he might have the chance to be with José again in Heaven.

“Let me see him again,” he prayed. “That's all I ask – whatever happens, let us be together.”

There was a sudden gust of wind, rustling the leaves on the ground and sending them up into the air. Jeremias watched them for a moment, then his gaze fixed back on the stark lines of José’s cross. A chill ran down his spine, then a warmth spread out along his stomach, feeling like it used to when José rubbed his hands over it while he was curled up behind Jeremias on cold winter nights.

Jeremias let out a hitching breath, and slowly stood up. He had to get back to the Castillo, back to what was left of his life.

 

****

 

The next time he met José was in a yurt on the steppes of Mongolia. They were just strangers trading horses, but the moment they shook hands it came back to Jeremias in a flash. It all unfolded in an instant: his whole lifetime in Spain, a country he'd never even heard of in this life; meeting José and loving him; his death and the lonely years that followed. Jeremias had to pull in a sudden breath at the recognition that surged through him.

José showed no sign of knowing him at all, ignoring Jeremias's shocked hesitation and moving on to talking up his horses' attributes. Jeremias let him talk, nodding and smiling and trying to work out how to keep him by his side in this life.

It was easy, really. Jeremias already knew José, after all; he might not know about his family, or his past, or what he looked like under his clothes in this new body, but he knew how to make him laugh and how to coax him into staying around just a little longer before travelling on.

This time, it was José who kissed Jeremias first, waiting until they were off on a ride together miles from anyone, the vast plains empty around them as he grabbed Jeremias's face and pulled him in close.

 _He kisses the same,_ thought Jeremias for a moment before relaxing into it, fitting his body against José's like they were meant to be.

One lifetime followed another. Details changed – their names, where they were, what they did, what they looked like - but the important things never did. José was always tall, his dimples always pulled a smile out of Jeremias, and when they kissed, it always felt like coming home after an eternity of wandering in the desert. José never remembered Jeremias or their previous lives, but it always came back to Jeremias the moment they touched, flashing through him in the space between one heartbeat and the next.

It wasn't always easy – sometimes they met too late, wives and children cluttering up their lives, paths all ready leading in opposite directions. Sometimes Jeremias had to let José go, watch him walk away and trust that it wouldn't be the last life, that next time it would work out. Sometimes their worlds shaped them too harshly into people who couldn't let themselves give in to something they'd been taught so thoroughly was wrong. They stuck to being best friends, and Jeremias tried to forget that he'd ever known what it was to be more than that.

Sometimes it was even harder, and he was torn between what he should do and what he wanted to do and came close to losing everything. Their fates balanced on a knife-edge, and he had to chose between José and everything else, all the things that most people counted important.

 

****

 

The _Jemima_ had been at sea for three weeks, working her way around the coast of Africa to India on a trading voyage. James had started to think that he was getting the hang of being a sailor, his body beginning to tune into the rhythm of watches and hardening up under the stress of the constant work. Fighting off two experienced hands, the kind of men who'd lost teeth in their first bar-room brawls while James had still been sitting in the schoolroom learning Latin, was still completely beyond him, though.

They'd cornered him in the rope locker, a tiny, narrow space, piles of rope coiled everywhere. There was no space to fight back, even if he'd known how. They were laughing at him as they manhandled him, bending him over a thick mooring rope. James had heard about this sort of thing happening, but he'd thought it was just stories.

“Time for you to learn how to keep morale up,” whispered one of them into his ear, pulling at his trousers. James kicked back frantically but someone was holding his legs down and he just didn't have the leverage. He could feel bile rising at thought of what was going to happen, panic shooting through him, but even that wasn't enough to get him free.

“Hey!” came a loud voice from behind them. “Get off him!” He nearly fainted with relief, even as the embarrassment of being caught like this rushed in. The man behind him was pulled roughly off, and James sank to his knees, then worked on getting his trousers back up, not wanting to turn around partially unclothed.

There was the sound of a couple of meaty punches being thrown, then one of the men who'd cornered James hissed, “You better hope we don't catch you alone next time instead, Jack,” and they took off.

James took a deep breath and turned around to face his rescuer. It was a tall man he vaguely recognised from the Starboard Watch. Three days into the voyage he'd stared at him for slightly too long when he'd seen him laughing from across the deck, caught on the way the dimples turned his face into something so beautiful that it had taken James a while to remember his vow not to think about men like that any more.

“Uh, thanks,” he said awkwardly, not sure what the correct etiquette was for addressing someone who had saved you from dishonour.

Jack laughed and held his hand out to help James up. “You're welcome,” he said.

James took the offered hand, already trying to come up with something else to say, and then it all hit him – memories of several lifetimes, of loving this man more than he'd ever thought he'd love anything.

“God damn,” he gasped as Jack pulled him upright, one hand going up to grab his head at the sudden rush.

“You okay?” asked Jack. “They didn't hurt you?”

James looked at him with new eyes, eyes that knew it was possible to live a lifetime loving a man and be happy, without God striking him down, despite what his family might think.

“Yeah, fine,” he said, sounding dazed even to himself. “Just – bit of a rush standing up that fast.”

“Right,” said Jack, still looking concerned. “I have to get a spare sheet for the bosun, so I have to be quick, but you should go rest somewhere.” He grabbed a heavy hank of rope from a shelf, slinging it over his arm. James took a moment to appreciate how well-built his shoulder was – working on a ship was a good look on him.

“I'm fine,” he insisted again, then held out his hand, unable to resist feeling Jack's palm again, even if there would be no connection this time. “James,” he introduced himself.

Jack shook his hand, grinning. “Jack,” he said.

James nodded, smiling back and hoping Jack felt a spark of connection, even if he didn't remember everything James did. “Thank you again.”

“Don't worry about it,” said Jack. “Just, try not to get caught alone again – they're likely to try again.”

James sighed. “Of course. Because I didn't have enough to worry about.”

“They're just bored and missing female companionship,” said Jack. “If you make it too hard for them, they'll eventually lose interest and bother someone else.”

“Right,” said James sceptically.

Over the next few days, the two men – Tom and Dick – kept close to James every chance they could, muttering dark promises in his ear about what they were going to do to him once they finally got him alone. James gritted his teeth and tried hard to ignore it, while simultaneously doing his best to spend as much time with Jack as he could.

He knew he couldn't start anything with Jack, not on a sailing ship with everyone breathing down each other's necks and knowing every secret, no matter how well hidden. Even if James hadn't been so set on holding firm to his vow that he wouldn't be with another man like that, he couldn't risk anything in those conditions. Still, he couldn't resist talking to Jack whenever he could, using everything he'd known of him in past lives to get him to smile that heart-stopping grin.

It wasn't easy. Being on opposing watches meant that one was always on duty while the other was off-duty, and James wasn't so caught up on sailing life yet that he was able to do much more than sleep when he was off-watch. Jack had been on the Jemima for a few years now and was friends with most of his watch. He was almost always involved in a dice game or something social when he was awake and off-duty.

They made port at Las Palmas, and the captain immediately granted shore leave for half the crew. James stayed behind, content to let the others go gallivanting off to find the cheap ale and even cheaper whores.

Jack stayed as well, and James finally managed to get him off alone. They sat on the stern together, drinking their way through the double ration of rum the captain had granted and looking out over the lights of Las Palmas.

“Have you been here before?” James asked.

Jack snorted. “Hundreds of times,” he said. “It's a dive – same as every other port on this route. Too many sailors spending all their money at once.”

“You don't enjoy spending money?” asked James, twitching an eyebrow.

Jack shrugged a shoulder. “I'm saving up,” he said, as if it were something to be ashamed of. “One day I'm going to own my own boat – a fishing boat, like my father had.”

“You're from fishing folk?” asked James. Jack had been close-mouthed about his past so far, and James wasn't ashamed to interrogate him now it looked like he was opening up slightly.

Jack nodded. “Born and raised in a fishing town in Norfolk. Until my father died, when I was fourteen. I went to be a sailor after that, to take the burden of one extra mouth to feed off my mother.”

James wasn't sure what to say to that. “I'm sorry,” he offered.

Jack laughed. “It was years ago,” he said. “Being a sailor has been good to me. I've seen the world, and I'm not far off my goal.” He turned, shifting his body to face James. “What about you? You never say anything about your past – it's very mysterious.”

“Nothing to tell,” said James shortly.

“Right,” said Jack, disbelievingly. “What kind of folk were your parents? Where are you from?”

James stared down at his bottle. “Farming folk,” he said after a pause. “Wheat, mostly. We had a place in Somerset.”

“That explains why you talk strangely,” said Jack. James bit at his cheek. He'd done his best to talk like the other sailors, but sometimes it was hard to forget the rules he'd grown up having beaten into him.

“What happened?” asked Jack. James paused, wondering how much detail he should go into, and Jack backtracked quickly. “Sorry, you don't have to say, if you don't want to.”

James sighed. “No, it's fine,” he said. “Nothing happened, really. As far as I know, they're all still there.”

Jack raised an eyebrow. “Right,” he said. “You just up and decided to run away to sea for no reason, even though you're clearly not suited to the life and you hate it.”

“I don't hate it,” James protested weakly. Jack just laughed. “Fine,” acknowledged James, “it's different from what I grew up with. I'm still getting used to it.”

“In my experience, if someone's not used to it by this point,” said Jack, “he won't ever be.” James just scowled at him, and Jack raised his hands defensively. “Okay, fine. You're going to be amazing at it; it'll just take a few more weeks.”

“Exactly,” said James, drinking to that. “I hardly ever get the fore top stays and the fore topgallant stays mixed up any more.”

Jack sniggered. “I bet that annoyed your watch.”

“Eh, if they cared so much, they should have labelled them,” said James, blithely.

“Or sent someone who knew what they were doing.”

James tipped his bottle at Jack. “Or that.”

Jack was silent for a moment, looking out at the other ships moored in the port. “I noticed that you didn't answer my question, by the way, about your family,” he said. “You don't have to, just...letting things fester and go unspoken means they turn sour inside you.”

James sighed and looked down at his hands, at the callouses and injuries he'd never once thought he'd ever have – signs of the kind of hard work that he wasn't brought up to. “I had a falling out with my brother,” he said, eventually. “We saw differently on something. I figured it was better for me to just leave, rather than my father to find out about it and get upset. He's getting older.”

Jack nodded. “So your brother's taking care of the farm?”

James nodded, his teeth gritting. That was his land – would be his land, and Timothy was going to screw it all up. Party away the money without thinking about reinvesting in the land, in their people. “Taking care is a relative term,” he said.

Jack made a face. “You going back some time, then?” he asked.

James shrugged, looking down. “I was meant to be,” he said. “That was the plan.” Problem was, that was the plan before he'd met Jack, before he'd had the lightning flash that told him he was meant to spend the rest of his life with him. How could he go back home with a male lover in tow? It was becoming increasingly difficult to convince himself that he was just going to be friends with Jack, especially since Jack had been subtly working his way closer and closer to James over the last hour, as they got drunker and drunker.

“What's the plan now?” asked Jack quietly and when James looked up, he was surprised at just how close he'd got. He found himself caught in Jack's eyes – blue in this lifetime where they'd been brown in the last one, but no less beautiful. It was hard to remember that he hadn't kissed him before and that leaning in now might not be such a good idea, not when he had a thousand other kisses flashing through his memory.

“I don't know,” he said, unsteadily. Hopefully that could be explained away by the rum.

“How about this?” asked Jack in a hushed voice, and he closed the distance between their mouths to kiss James. It was just the briefest of touches, then he backed away, searching James's eyes for some sign, clearly worried he'd made the wrong move.

James hovered for a moment, torn between what he'd intended when he'd come on board and the vow he made to himself after he left home, and the certainty that this would be the best thing that would ever happen to him. Jack's face started to fall, and James just couldn't let that happen – couldn't let Jack be sad for a second if he could fix it. He let a grin spread across his face.

“That's a good plan,” he said, throwing caution - and his future - to the wind. Jack smiled back and kissed James again, pressing close this time and holding onto James's shoulder to steady himself. James gave himself up to it, memorising the curve of Jack's smile and the touch of his tongue and imprinting the moment in his memory, with all the other first kisses they'd shared.

There was a splash from the port side of the ship, and Jack sprang back instantly, glancing over his shoulder, though it had been too far away to signify anyone finding them. He looked back at James almost sheepishly, shrugging. “This is not a good place for this.”

James snorted, rubbing at his face. “Where is?” he asked. In all the lifetimes he'd lived, he could still count the number of times they'd been able to kiss in public without fear of a beating or worse on one hand.

Jack looked out over the dark water of the bay, then over at the bright lights and noise of the town. “We're staying two more nights,” he said. “I have shore leave tomorrow. How about you?” James nodded with a frown, and Jack returned the nod more decisively. “We'll get a room. There's a couple of quiet inns that won't ask too many questions about a pair of sailors who just want a warm bed to sleep a full night in.”

“Won't that cost a bit?” asked James. “What happened to saving up for your boat?”

Jack grinned at him. “Some things are more important,” he said. “I can't think of anything I'd rather spend my money on than getting you to myself.”

 

****

 

The inn was dingy and the beds were uncomfortable but James didn't notice, and he was pretty sure Jack didn't either. They didn't bother sleeping at all, not wanting to waste the time, and James rediscovered all the ways he could make Jack moan with pleasure. It was clear that Jack had been with a man before, but James didn't ask any questions. He didn't want to know about any past lovers, not until he'd had the chance to wipe away all memory of them and make sure Jack was bound to him as firmly as James had been at the moment their hands first touched.

Most of the rest of the trip to India was a mixture of torture and elation. There was no way they could find anywhere to be alone, not without risking the whole crew finding out, but James managed to get himself transferred onto Jack's watch after some of the crew never returned from their shore leave in Las Palmas. Being on the same watch meant spending almost every moment together: working together, sleeping with their hammocks slung next to each other, and spending their few free hours together, talking as if they would never run out of things to say.

Jack helped James finally get the hang of life on board, keeping him from making any of the mistakes that had so annoyed the other watch and getting him into the rhythm of four hours on, four hours off. Tom and Dick returned from their shore leave sated on the whores of Las Palmas, and by the time they'd been at sea long enough for them to get the itch, they'd forgotten all about James.

By the time they reached India, it was well known within the crew that James and Jack were inseparable, and James was counting this lifetime as one of their better ones, even if he was sexually frustrated most of the time. Jerking off in his hammock, knowing that Jack was less than a metre away and likely listening to every breath James took, only served to make him more turned on and didn't seem to take the edge off at all.

They had more shore leave in Cape Town and took a room at an inn again, all their pent-up lust spilling over until James thought he was going to combust with it, Jack's hands sure and confident and wringing every drop of passion out of him.

“One day,” he gasped, heady with the feel of all that warm skin against his, “we'll be able to do this every night, all the time. We'll never have to stop.”

Jack laughed into his neck, breath hot and damp on James's pulse point. “Think we might need to sleep sometimes.” He moved his hand in just the right way, licked along James's collarbone, and James lost all track of the conversation.

Later, when they were finally sated and lying close, wrapped in each other's arms, Jack brought it up again. “You really think there's going to be a future for us, like this?”

James shrugged slightly, too comfortable to move more than that. “I believe that one day we'll get a chance to be together properly. Might not be in this lifetime, but one day we won't have to hide.”

Jack snorted. “Don't know what makes you so optimistic,” he said, sounding sad. “You know there's nowhere we can go where this is ever going to be accepted.”

James sighed and let his eyes fall shut. “It'll happen,” he promised, as if he knew what the hell he was talking about.

 

****

 

Surat, where they made port in India, was more colourful and noisier than James had expected, and he was sorry that their time there was so short – just enough time to unload their cargo of wool and replace it with silk before heading home again.

James felt like a real sailor on the way home, especially as they'd replaced some of the crew in Surat and the new men had no idea he hadn't been doing this job for years. He wondered briefly what his father would think if he could see him now, then pushed the thought away. He already knew what Timothy would say – that he'd sunk to his natural level, at the bottom of society.

They were nearly back to England, crossing the Bay of Biscay, when Jack got him alone late into the middle watch, while they were supposed to be keeping port-side look-out.

“This is my last voyage,” he said in a hushed tone. “I have enough money. I can go home and buy my boat, set up as a fisherman.”

James swallowed back a surge of disappointment – he'd been looking forward to sailing with Jack for a good few more voyages. “That's great,” he said, hoping he sounded like he meant it.

Jack shook his head impatiently, as if James wasn't getting it. “I want you to come with me,” he said. “Be my first mate. You learnt sailing quickly enough, and fishing isn't much harder.”

James gaped at him. “What?” he asked.

Jack looked uncomfortable, but he clenched his jaw and kept going. “Look,” he said. “This thing, you...it means a lot to me. I don't want to say goodbye and not see you again after this. My home town – it's big enough that, if we keep a low profile, no one will notice us living and working together.” He glanced around them, then took James's hand, keeping it hidden from the rest of the deck with his body. “We can have a life together – a proper one.”

James found himself nodding. “Yes,” he said. “All right, I'll come.”

Jack broke out into a grin that seemed to light up the night. “Brilliant,” he said happily.

 

****

 

They left the ship at London, final wages carefully hidden away inside their shirts. Jack took them to a sailor's hostel near the docks, an overcrowded and squalid place, and James couldn't help but remember where he'd stayed the last time he'd been in town, at his family's townhouse in Knightsbridge.

The next morning, Jack went to find a stagecoach that would take them to Norfolk, and James took the chance to head over to the more familiar, and more upper class, areas of town.

The townhouse, when he got there, was clearly currently occupied by a member of the family. The last time James had seen his father, he'd been getting too old to go further than the local church, so it must be Timothy – spending all James's inheritance in the gambling dens, no doubt. He thought for a moment of going in and asking for some money; it seemed unfair that Jack would be carrying the financial burden of their future when James technically had access to all this. The memory of his last meeting with Timothy stayed his step. The last thing he needed was for Timothy to hold true to his threat.

He turned to trudge back through the streets to the dock area, but on the way back down the street he passed two maids, clearly coming home from market.

“Did you get Master Timothy's tea?” one asked.

“Of course,” replied the other sharply. “And you know it's Lord Selwood now. If the butler catches you making that mistake, he won't be pleased.”

James stopped dead where he was. If Timothy was Lord Selwood, that meant... He had to take a sudden breath, then he turned and headed after the maids.

“Excuse me,” he said as politely as he could. They turned around and stared at him with disdain. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I couldn't help overhearing. Is the Baron dead, then?”

The older maid sniffed at his appearance. “I'm sure it's none of your business,” she said.

“Please?” asked James, giving them the most winning look he could come up with. “I need to know.”

“He died a month ago,” said the younger one, ignoring the glare her companion gave her. “Sudden heart attack, although they do say he was broken-hearted after his eldest son disappeared – dead, they all think.”

“Mary,” said the other maid. “You should not be gossiping in the street with the likes of him.”

“Thank you,” James said, and left them to their argument. He walked quickly down the street, his heart beating hard in his chest. His father was dead. His father had been dead for a month, and he'd had no idea.

He headed back to the docks in a daze, not seeing anything. Jack was at the hostel, waiting for him.

“There you are,” he said, sounding relieved. “Thought you'd run off somewhere.”

James didn't have it in him to reply to that. “My father's dead,” he said, and Jack's face fell.

“Oh, I'm so sorry,” he said. He stepped forward, as if to hug James, then aborted the movement and just touched his arm instead.

James shook his head, all the thoughts he'd had on the way home cluttering up his brain. “It's... I can go home,” he said, as if it were as simple as that.

Jack stared at him for one long moment, then stepped back, pulling away. “Oh,” he said. “That's...I'm glad for you, then.”

This was all coming out wrong. James took a deep breath and then let it out, trying to get his thoughts into order. “No,” he said. “You can come too – or we can go somewhere else entirely, abroad, maybe. I...” He suddenly remembered where they were, and he glanced at the roomful of out-of-work sailors. “We need to go somewhere we can talk.”

Jack was frowning, clearly confused, and James hoped like hell that he'd be able to forgive the lies and half-truths James had told him over the last few months.

They went down to the Thames, walking along the bank until they found a place where no one could hear them, the mudlarks below calling to each other in high voices as they picked through the debris of the river.

“I've not been entirely truthful,” James started out, and Jack sighed, looking away.

“I thought so,” he said heavily.

“Not about the important stuff,” said James. “I don't... I want to spend my life with you, Jack. But...my family aren't farmers.” Jack frowned again, and James just let the truth out into the air between them. “My father is...was a baron. Technically, I am now.”

Jack stared at him. “That's not very funny,” he said in a shaky voice.

“I'm not joking,” said James. “I'm his eldest son – his heir, but my brother – Timothy, he...he found me with a stableboy. He said he'd tell my father, tell everyone, unless I left, got out the way so he'd inherit.”

“What?” said Jack. He rubbed a hand over his face and half turned away. “God, James, you can't... Why didn't you tell me?”

James shrugged uncomfortably. “I couldn't. On the ship, it all just seemed too fantastical, like a bad novel. I didn't think you'd believe me.”

Jack gave a strained laugh. “And I will now?”

“I can prove it,” said James firmly. “I left because I love my father. If he'd known about me, he'd have been devastated. But he's gone now.” He swallowed. “I can go home, get my inheritance back from Timothy. I'll be rich.”

“Great,” said Jack. “Good for you.” He didn't look happy though, and James could feel him slipping away. Jack turned to look out over the Thames at the south bank and shoved his hands in his pockets.

“Jack,” said James, pulling him around to look at him. “You don't get it: it's not just me. _We'll_ be rich. You wanted to share your future with me – your fishing boat. I want to share this with you.”

Jack shook his head sharply. “How? You want me to come to your...your mansion, and be your live-in lover? The bit of rough you bought back from your travels to scandalise everyone?”

“No,” said James fiercely. “It's not like that. Jack, I just want you with me, and who cares what everyone else thinks?”

Jack shook his head. “I care. In Norfolk, we'd have to be quiet, but people wouldn't know – we'd be fisherman, James. Normal people. Living together in some massive house, hated by your peers, and mine... I can't do it.” He turned away and started heading back along the bank to the hostel.

“Jack,” said James desperately. “Come on.”

Jack shook his head. “I'm leaving on the stagecoach tomorrow morning,” he said. “At seven. You're welcome to come with me.”

“Why would I want to be a fisherman when I can be a baron?” asked James out loud. “Jack, don't be a fool – why turn your back on a life of luxury?”

“I don't want luxury,” said Jack. “I never did. I want happiness.” He continued walking, and James watched him go, despair welling up in him.

He'd seen Jack walk away from him before, but it never seemed to get easier. Every lifetime where they were apart felt like a lifetime wasted, but James couldn't bring himself to just abandon his estate. Jack was wrong. They could live together like that and it would be fine. They'd be happy. All they needed was each other, after all, and screw the rest of the world. James would have enough money for most people to turn a blind eye to them, if Jack would just take that step with him.

He turned away, hands clenched into fists and shoved into his pockets, and headed back to Knightsbridge.

 

****

 

To say Timothy was surprised to see him was an understatement.

“James!” he exclaimed when the butler showed him into the study. “I thought you were...”

“Gone for good?” said James, looking around the room and noting the changes. Their father's heavy old desk had been pushed to one side and replaced with a large, expensive-looking sidebar. “Sorry to disappoint. Also, I hear I'm Lord Selwood, these days. I think I'd prefer it if you called me by my title.”

Timothy's eyes narrowed. “I thought I made myself clear before,” he said. “I'll tell all of society of your...sexual proclivities, if you try to claim that title.”

James shrugged and settled down on one of the sofas. “The only person whose opinion I cared about is dead,” he pointed out. _And the other just walked away from me_ , he thought bitterly. “Tell whomever you like.”

Timothy smashed down his brandy glass. “The estate is mine,” he said. “I won't let you take it from me.”

“You don't have a choice,” said James sharply. “Unless you plan on killing me, but we both know you're too cowardly for something that physical. I'm the eldest, Timothy. It was always going to be mine. I can get you a commission in the navy or something, though, if you'd like. I'm sure a couple of months on board a ship would do you good.”

Timothy glared at him. “Is that where you've been? You stink like a common sailor. Or have you just been whoring yourself out at the docks?”

James clenched his teeth and stood up. “I've been working. Like an honest man – something you'd know nothing about,” he said. “Now, get out of my study.”

“You were always a bastard,” hissed Timothy. “Even when we were kids.”

James almost smiled. If Timothy was down to hurling insults about their childhood, then he had nothing real left to fight with. “On your way out, ask the maid to draw me a bath,” he said. “Time to start appearing like a baron again.”

 

****

 

Being clean felt amazing. Timothy's valet, who James borrowed, dug out some of the clothes he'd left here last time he was in town and helped James put them on. He'd forgotten how constricting and overly fussy these clothes were, and for a moment he found himself wishing he could just put back on his sailor's clothes.

“Shall I discard these?” asked the valet, holding them up with distaste.

“No,” said James. He'd met Jack in those clothes, loved him in them. “Have them laundered and returned to me as soon as possible.”

The valet was well-trained and managed only the barest twitch of an eyebrow in reaction. “Of course, my Lord,” he said, and left.

James spent the rest of the day looking around the house, finding all his father's documents and going through them. He found a whole series of letters between Timothy and an estate manager called Richard Harding, who seemed to be managing the estate with a competence that James wouldn't have expected while Timothy was in charge. Maybe he'd underestimated him.

Sitting in his father's empty office was lonely, though. James found himself missing the comradeship of being at sea, and especially Jack. He and Jack had been by each other's sides almost constantly for months now. It felt strange for him not to be in easy reach. Several times James turned to tell him something and then remembered he wasn't there and had to bite back his words.

He ate dinner alone. Timothy hadn't shown his face since their altercation earlier, but the butler informed James that he'd gone to a prior social engagement. Timothy always had been able to make friends easily, unlike James. No doubt Timothy was already beginning to spread the tale of his depraved brother, who'd returned from whoring himself out to take the family title from him. As if it mattered – their father's will wouldn't have left Timothy forgotten, and he was more than capable of landing on his feet, finding some rich débutante to marry.

James found himself thinking of Jack again as he ate, thinking about spending the rest of his life without him, eating alone and trying to console himself with the luxuries his money could buy. He wondered where Jack was, what he was doing, and that thought soon turned into wondering what his life would be like in Norfolk, without James. Whether he'd be just as miserable as James was going to be without him, or whether he'd find someone else – a girl, maybe, someone he could publicly make a life with. James couldn't stand either thought.

He thought back over their conversation and all the things he could have said to persuade Jack to come with him. He'd barely even tried – surely Jack was worth more than that?

“Call the carriage,” he told the butler as he came in to clear the table and offer coffee.

“Certainly, my Lord,” said the butler, bowing.

Jack wasn't at the hostel, but James didn't have to look far to find him. The tavern next door was overflowing with sailors who grudgingly parted when they saw the clothes of a gentleman. Jack was inside, sitting at the bar as if he'd been there for hours.

“Jack,” James said to him quietly, conscious of all the eyes in the room trained on him. There were gentlemen who chose to come down to the dockside bars to slum it, but this was not the kind of place they usually chose, and James was aware of the hostility. He was outsider in this world now, where he would have been welcomed only this morning. He should probably have changed his clothes before coming, but he hadn't really been thinking. He'd just needed to see Jack again.

“Sorry, my Lord,” said Jack, glancing up at him, and James could see the exact moment he recognised him. “Jesus, James,” he said, his eyes widening, and then he shook his head. “Sorry, it's Lord Selwood now, right?”

James gritted his teeth. “Jack, we have to talk,” he said.

Jack shook his head and went back to his beer. “We have nothing more to say.”

“I have more to say,” said James firmly. “Come outside, Jack. We can talk in my carriage.”

Jack shook his head. “Only one reason someone dressed like me gets into a carriage with someone dressed like you,” he said. “I shouldn't even be talking to you. Go away, James.”

“For God's sake,” swore James, struggling to keep his voice down. “Why does this matter so much?”

“Of course you wouldn't understand,” said Jack bitterly. “That's the nobility all over – don't give a damn about anyone but themselves. You _lied_ to me, James. And now you want me to come be your...your kept boy. What happens after that, when you get bored of me?”

“I never will,” said James firmly.

Jack just shook his head. “Go away,” he said again. “Go find some lord's daughter, or some lord's son, if that's how you want to play it. Just leave me out of it.” He slid off his stool and headed for the door.

James huffed out a frustrated breath, but there was nothing more he could do, not with the whole tavern still eyeing him suspiciously.

“In case you didn't get that, my Lord,” said a nearby man in rough seaman's clothes, “that means you're not welcome here. Go and try the Three Swans – they have more of your kind of thing there.”

James glared at him, but left anyway. Jack had already disappeared, and James couldn't think of what else he'd say to him even if he found him, so he just got in his carriage and went back to the townhouse.

He sat in his room for hours, staring out of the window at the street below: carriages passing by, the lights on in the house opposite as they held some kind of party, footmen amusing themselves as they waited for their masters to come out. It all seemed so empty, so unreal, after the last few months with Jack.

He stayed awake all night, then rang for the valet while it was still dark.

“Are my clothes from yesterday laundered yet?” he asked.

The valet blinked at him, clearly half-asleep. “The sailor garments?” he asked. James nodded impatiently. “I will go and ask the maid,” said the valet, doing a less successful job at hiding his confusion than he had done the previous day.

He brought the clothes back with him, still slightly damp, and James pulled them on. He'd worn them when they were a great deal wetter, at sea.

“Wake my brother,” he instructed the valet. “Tell him I have something to say that he'll want to hear and to meet me in the study.”

Timothy was still in his bed clothes, his dressing gown rumpled, when James came down. “Why are you dressed like that?” he asked immediately.

“I'm leaving,” said James.

Timothy perked up, then frowned. “Why?”

James shrugged. “Being a baron isn't for me, after all,” he said. Timothy's frown just deepened. “I'll disappear completely,” said James, “never come back again, let you keep the title, the estate, all of it. But I'll need money.”

Timothy shook his head. “You have money now,” he pointed out.

“Do you want to argue this with me,” asked James, “or do you want to just give me some cash and get rid of me?”

Timothy only needed to think about that for half a second, then he crossed to their father's desk and unlocked one of the drawers. He pulled out a handful of money, and James took it all.

“I'll write to you when I'm settled,” he said, “if I need more.”

Timothy shook his head. “That's not enough for even a modest house,” he said. “What are you planning to do?”

James grinned at him. “I'm planning to be happy.”

Timothy was still looking puzzled when James left.

 

****

 

James got to the stagecoach just as they were boarding. Jack was hanging back, glancing over his shoulder down the street, and James felt a surge of warmth that he hadn't given up on him.

“I'm here,” he said, and Jack turned around. He took James's appearance in in one glance and raised an eyebrow. “Not a lord any more?” he asked.

James shook his head. “Guess I'm just a fisherman now,” he said.

Jack's face lit up with happiness. “Yeah?” he asked, and James had to clench his fists hard not to step forward and kiss him, taste the joy from his lips. _Later,_ he thought. “Yeah,” he said. “I hear it's pretty easy to learn.”

Jack laughed and made an aborted movement towards James, as if he wanted to hold him close as well. “Well, I might have lied about that,” he admitted.

James shrugged. “I'll learn,” he said confidently. “For you, I'd learn anything.”

Jack's dimples deepened, something James wouldn't have said was possible. They got on to the stagecoach together, and London slowly disappeared behind them. James watched it go, watched the life he could have had slip away, then turned to grin at Jack again. Almost anyone else would say that he was making an enormous mistake, walking away from an estate and a title for another man, but James had the memories of several other lives in his head, and he knew just how good life with Jack was going to be. He wasn't missing out on anything.

 

****

 

And now it had come down to this. The tall, friendly-looking guy sticking his hand out and saying, “Hi! I'm Jared Padalecki. Hopefully I'm gonna be playing your brother.”

The instant Jensen touched his hand, he remembered. Everything flashed through his mind, from that first handshake in Spain to learning to fish, cold and wet and helpless with laughter, to the last time he'd touched Jared, clasping his shoulder in a hospital in Pretoria just before his death. It wasn't all in perfect detail. It was more like an old sepia photograph: the details were blurred, the colours had faded, but the image could still be seen, and parts of it – the important parts – were perfectly in focus.

He smiled back and held on to Jared's hand for a moment longer than was normal. “Jensen Ackles,” he said. “It's really good to meet you.”


End file.
